


Falling Down

by Redisaid



Series: Falling [7]
Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, Warcraft III, World of Warcraft
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Did you know the other name for this series is The Things We Wrote and Sometimes Read?, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Nothing is fine, Please Check The Warnings, third war, yeah sorry about that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-07 22:17:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17969069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redisaid/pseuds/Redisaid
Summary: This is the end of the Falling series. Thanks, and I'm sorry.





	Falling Down

**Author's Note:**

> A fair warning. You probably can guess what is about to happen. I wanted to do these ladies justice. They are two characters that are inherently defined by both their tragedy and their ability to overcome it. I didn't want to give them yet another fixit fic. There are plenty of amazing ones out there already! I wanted to explore a canon Third War for them, and what it would mean to them if they knew one another at that time. 
> 
> So, sorry about all this.

“What?” Drenden finally asked.

Everyone else had been too stunned, or still absorbing the impact of that phrase to respond. Kael’thas still clutched at his head, reeling from something that all the mages in the room had felt, but not seen.

Rhonin reached his wife’s side and steadied her as she continued. 

“We...we were overrun,” Vereesa went on. “We were betrayed somehow. Arthas got past the second gate as if it were nothing. Someone let him in, but I don’t know who. The plan had been to pick off his forces there, weaken his army, but instead they attacked us with full force where we weren’t ready for them.”

“And the third gate?” Antonidas asked. The old man had recovered enough of his wits.

“My sister made a stand there, for a time. She tried to warn us of the coming assault, but the undead took most of her runners. Those that made it back to Silvermoon didn’t have enough information to prepare us. We did what we could, but there were so many…” Vereesa reported. She trailed off into tears again, holding on to Rhonin as he looked fretfully over her wounded arm.

“My prince, surely this news pains you, but--” Krasus said as he began to walk over to Kael’thas.

The elven prince let out another pained groan, like a man that had been kicked in the ribs. It sounded like a far more physical reaction than one might expect from the leader.

“It’s not just that,” Vereesa said. Jaina could see the same pain written on her face, mixed in with the rest of her grievances. “He...he was after the Sunwell. We made a stand there too, on the Isle. Anasterian fell there. But he got it. Arthas got what he wanted, and defiled the Sunwell in the process. I was watching with a few magisters that survived. They raised a very powerful creature using it’s energies, and now it’s lost to us. It...everything...we lost everything…”

“Why didn’t you ask for aid?” Modera questioned. 

“There was no time,” Vereesa told her. “We didn’t even know he’d passed the second gate until he was marching on the city. It was so quick...so devastating…”

Kael’thas finally managed to pull his head from his hands to ask one simple and horrible question, “What remains?”

“Some survivors,” Vereesa told him. “We did our best to get the civilians out, whether it was to tell them to flee into the woods or to portal them elsewhere. Not many though.”

“My father fell?” Kael’thas asked.

“Yes, my prince. He was slain by Arthas,” Vereesa reported gravely.

“And Sylvanas?” 

Jaina’s heart had been pounding in her chest. She had watched this conversation happen, numb and hardly present. She felt as if she were a ghost, a fly on the wall of a grand palace, seeing something that it was never meant to see. But now, with that question, it became real. She knew the answer before it was spoken. She knew it with terrifying certainty.

Vereesa shook with sobs as she said, “Fallen as well. He...he did something to her. Her and her rangers. Their ghosts have joined his army. I watched my sister’s face haunt us below the battlements as we tried to fight the undead. I didn’t know it was possible for our kind, but it is. She marches with him now.”

And yet somehow, the answer was even worse. Jaina felt her breath catch in her throat. Her body seemed to forget how to take new air in. 

Vereesa’s eyes met hers knowingly, for just a moment, before they turned back to Kael’thas.

What followed was a conversation that Jaina didn’t really hear or understand. She couldn’t, because all she could do was try to breathe, and try not to show how much that news had affected her. No. She couldn’t. She couldn’t do that to Sylvanas. She…

Tides, she was gone. She was really gone. 

All Jaina gleaned from the time the Council of Six spent interrogating poor Vereesa was that Arthas was headed to Dalaran. His army, complete with Sylvanas’ twisted ghost, would arrive in a week.

And they had no chance of defeating him. No, not if he’d taken Silvermoon in a matter of days.

Eventually, plans formed around her. Kael’thas, still wracked with the shivers of what Jaina could only imagine was withdrawl from the Sunwell’s usually ever-present power, left first, dragging a noticeably less affected Krasus with him. He went to gather any elf left in Dalaran and bring them back to aid the survivors of his kingdom--a broken, dying kingdom that he was now the leader of. Drenden had been sent to bring the news to the southern kingdoms of the Alliance and to discuss plans for what would be done about the coming assault on Dalaran with them. Antonidas and Modera had moved off to a corner of the room, and were carrying on a heated discussion in harsh-sounding whispers. Rhonin was the last to break away, and insisting that he go to find a proper healer for his wife. 

Only then did Vereesa approach her.

“I…” she began, her voice so low Jaina could barely hear it over the frantic beating of her own heart. “I knew.”

Grief and panic mixed together, bringing tears to Jaina’s eyes that she had been trying so hard not to let out. They poured from her in silent sobs now, unbidden and unwanted. 

“It’s alright,” Vereesa assured her. “Well no, nothing is alright. But...I’m glad she had you. I’m glad she had some happiness in her life...before…”

“I...she’s...she’s really gone?” Jaina managed to ask. She knew it was true, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. Sylvanas was so strong and quick. She was so confident. She was amazing at everything she did. She seemed every bit as immortal as she was. But this was just another painful reminder that the slow aging of the elves was not a true immortality. No, it was not.

Vereesa offered a slow nod, clutching at her wounded arm with her good one. “I didn’t see it, but the runners that did make it to the city told us she fought him to the last. She and her rangers made a stand to try and buy us time. She died honorably, and even with this twisted fate she’s been given, will be forever known as a great hero to our people, should enough of us manage to survive to continue being a people...”

Jaina didn’t really even think. She let that phrase echo in her head as she reached into the collar of her robes. She drew out the chain from which the golden feather pendant hung. It was still warm from the heat of her body. Warm as Sylvanas’ touch had always been. Warm and welcoming and steadying. And gone now. Just gone.

She unfastened the chain from her neck and quickly handed the entire thing to Vereesa without a word.

She didn’t take it at first. “Jaina--” she started.

“You said she will be known as a hero,” Jaina said, finding an odd sense of purpose in all of this. It stopped the tears long enough to let the words come out. “Let’s keep it that way. Don’t...don’t let anything taint her, and what she’s done. Her soul being ripped out and paraded in front of you was already too much.”

Vereesa reached out her good hand to push the pendant back toward Jaina. “It’s not like that. Please, Jaina, let me--” 

“No. Take this back, please. Let our secret die with her. Let her be remembered for better things. Please Vereesa. Please,” Jaina demanded.

Vereesa opened her mouth to try to object again, but only another sob followed it. She took the chain, stashing it deftly in a pocket before the action could be noticed by anyone else left in the room.

“We...we should talk,” Vereesa told her. “Once things have settled, or if they do. I know that when we first looked at this token together, I had a very different attitude. I just...I want you to know that--”

A portal flashed into existence beside them, cutting Vereesa off. Rhonin emerged from it seconds later, with a priestess in tow. 

Vereesa could only shoot Jaina one last pained look before she succumb to her husband’s worried attentions as he swooped in with the healer. 

Jaina began to back away, looking about and wondering if she had the strength to portal herself an exit from this terrible place. She bumped into Modera as she did, and the older woman’s hand rested firmly on her shoulder as she spun around to face her.

“Jaina, I need you to listen to Antonidas and myself for a minute, all right?” she said before Jaina could even react.

“I…”

“This is all very upsetting, but, here, let’s sit for a bit, okay?” Modera said as she began guiding Jaina to a chair next to the one that Antonidas was now occupying.

Jaina didn’t have the strength to object. She let herself be led. She sunk into the plush fabric of the chair. Only then did it hit her. She was sitting the Purple Parlor. She was somewhere that only the highest ranking mages ever got to see, somewhere she could have only dreamed of seeing in her lifetime, but at the same time, it was at the worst moment in her life. Worse than Stratholme. Worse than Derek’s funeral. Worse than watching her mother’s ship sail away as she left her behind in Lordaeron. 

Because there had been hope then. There had been something good left in the world. Now, there was nothing. Her one good thing was gone. Sylvanas was dead and raised in the service of a man she had once thought would be that good thing, but now he had taken it from her. And he was marching toward this city now, to damn them all yet again.

Antonidas was close enough to rest a hand on hers. He was trembling a bit. Even in his age, Jaina had never seen him shake like this. But it wasn’t frailty. It wasn’t age, or senility. No. It was fear. But still, he held her hand, and tried to steady her as much as he did himself. 

“Jaina Proudmoore,” he began, his voice not wavering as his body did, but steady and even as he went on, “I am going a bit rogue here, as this is supposed to be done by the entire Council and not just two of us, but there’s not time to lose, and I very much doubt the six of us will ever be in the same room again to make that choice. So, I hereby name you an Archmage of the Kirin Tor. You have all the rights and privileges associated with that title, but with them, a task, should you wish to accept it, of course.”

Jaina had no space left in her heart for another emotion. Grief, panic, impending doom, and now shock. It was too much. She could only stare helplessly at Antonidas.

He squeezed her hand as he continued, “I believe you now, child. I believe in this prophet. I’m only sorry we didn’t listen earlier. I want you to lead what’s left of Lordaeron and its army to Kalimdor.”

\---

Three days.

Three days, where she rode from sunrise to sunset. Three days, where there hadn’t been time or energy left to grieve. Three days, where every image of Sylvanas’ smile was replaced by the haunted faces of refugees, looking to her for guidance, for hope that she wasn’t sure she had to share, much less enough to keep her going.

But she did. Jaina rode through the pain, through the saddle sores and the ache in her heart. She lost her voice from all the talking, the yelling, the preaching. She begged and pleaded. She stole and borrowed. She promised things she couldn’t ever hope to deliver on. 

She did what was asked of her and more, because that was what she did. That was who she was. That was Jaina Proudmoore, Archmage of the Kirin Tor, whom the few, ragged, and still living peasants of Lordaeron were beginning to whisper of when they didn’t think she could hear them. When they didn’t think she could listen to them talk of her as if she were a hero, as if she could really save them.

They didn’t know that she would ride ahead of the overwhelmingly large column of people that followed her, sometimes, not to scout for danger, not to ensure they were heading toward the ocean on the safest possible route through the toxic wasteland that their homeland was quickly becoming, but just to cry. To cry and not be seen.

The wind howled, bringing with it the salt smells of the ocean. They were close now, only a few miles away. The docks were just ahead, and with them would come another challenge. Jaina would have to convince the merchant captains there to take on all these people and all the supplies she had managed to gather for them, and to take them to a land few of them had ever seen, much less had any reason to see. Oh, right, and to do it all for free, or for payment in such vague concepts as honor and prophesy. Such a feat made turning around and defending Dalaran seem easier by comparison.

And Tides, she had tried to do just that. She had begged. But Antonidas wouldn’t listen. He prepared the city, not to last through a siege, but to fall gracefully. And he would go with it. Modera argued with him too, but the old man wouldn’t hear the end of it. He’d sent Jaina off to Kalimdor, and had Modera lead those that would not go across the sea down to flee to the southern kingdoms instead.

Jaina could only listen to his reasoning and wonder if Sylvanas had felt the same way, when she knew there was no other choice. 

She leaned over the sweat-slick neck of her mount, holding onto the horse as he ran. Holding onto something, anything. Just holding on.

Rain was threatening to come in off the sea. She could smell it with the salt of the air, and see it in the dark clouds that gathered above. It had been like this every day. The sun itself seemed to have abandoned this land. But the rain would only threaten. It would never fall. 

Jaina knew what that was like. Behind her grand speeches and determined eyes, she was a dark cloud, constantly threatening to burst. She just burst in private, like a summer shower, gone as soon as it came. Even now, her tears felt fruitless and hollow, not enough, but she had to let them fall somewhere. 

It all felt so pointless. All of it. If they even made it to Kalimdor, if they even got the captains to agree to sail there in the first place--what then? What came next? And did it matter? Was it worth it? She saw the same dark clouds in the sunken eyes of the other survivors. What could she offer them? How could she end that grief, when she couldn’t even spare more than a moment cry herself?

It didn’t help, even as she did. There was no heavy exhaustion afterwards, no reward of dreamless sleep. Just more to do, and less reason to do it for.

But this wasn’t like before. It wasn’t like Stratholme, where she felt nothing. No, the pain was in everything. It was in the way that the clouds reminded her of the rain when she first met Sylvanas--how it had drenched them and brought them together. It was in the way that the cold winds raged through the night and reminded her of that first night in the cabin in Alterac, of how Sylvanas had pushed along and brought them there, despite how miserable she was. It was in the way she lay awake at night, in a tent all alone, while her growing following slept around her. In how it wasn’t even that long ago that she’d slept in Sylvanas’ arms. In how it wasn’t that long ago that they’d said goodbye without even saying the words. 

In how much they had spoken, just that way--by just knowing, not by saying. 

The wind kept at it, shaking the trees, drying the tears against her face as fast as she could let them fall. Even as her horse sped down the road, she could see the wind shift and begin to bend the tops of the trees to the west, to the sea.

She almost expected to see a great raven swoop down to encourage her to keep going, but he never did. No, the Prophet himself was even done with this land.

But the wind didn’t stop. It stirred other birds from their perches in the ancient pines. They flew along with it, westward with the gusts that stirred at Jaina’s robes and cloak, pushing her along as if she were as small and light as those little birds. It was steady, but firm. Never overbearing, but always insistent. Calm, but strong. 

“You wanted me to go,” Jaina whispered to the wind. 

If there was a reply, it was lost in the sounds of the trees. 

“You wanted me to leave. You wanted me to be safe,” she told it. The wind, so persistent and so stubborn. It was the closest she would get to having Sylvanas back. 

“I’m going. You hear me? I’m going!” she shouted at it now.

The wind howled louder now, causing the dry branches to creak and rattle in a glorious cacophony. Yes. Yes. Sylvanas had wanted her to go.

“I’m going!” Jaina screamed again. 

And she remembered that it felt better to be angry again. Well, not better. Easier, maybe.

\---

“You’re mad.”

“Absolutely not.” 

“Fucking Kalimdor?”

“No way.”

Those were some of the kinder responses from the cluster of merchant captains before her. She expected this. Well, she had anticipated this. She had hoped for better, obviously, but Jaina knew she was asking for something beyond ridiculous. Even with most of Lordaeron’s remaining army standing behind her, the last of the naval ships requisitioned to her command, and her being announced as an Archmage, it still wasn’t enough.

Not even as gloom hung literally over them, a thick blanket of storm clouds that threatened to wash the plague onto their very decks. No, not even a warning that death was coming on feet that needed neither food nor rest, and it would run them down just as it had a civilization thousands of years older than theirs, and many times more advanced, in just a matter of days.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” another voice came above the din of dissent, roiling with a familiar accent that wasn’t quite like anything Jaina could call home anymore, but still comforting to hear. “What else are you all gonna do? There’s no cargo to run here. No one’s got anything left to pay you with. You’ve all sat in port here, waiting for some lordling to come throw his gold at you to evacuate him. But that lordling and that gold ain’t coming.”

“So what then?” A broad-chested beast of a man with a red beard offered from the front of the crowd as he turned back to the voice. He spoke in a flat Lordaeron accent like the rest. “We take this girl and a bunch women and children through the Maelstorm?”

“Everyone knows that you gotta sail around it, you fucking ingrate,” the Kul Tiran voice answered, drawing a roar of laughter from the rest of the captains.

The owner of said voice stepped forward, revealing himself to be a portly, older man. Balding, with only the scant remains of wispy salt and pepper hair underneath his cap, and a belly that spoke more of the amount of ale he drank than the obvious strength in his bulky frame. Yes, a real Kul Tiran. 

He flashed Jaina a toothy grin before turning back to the rest of the captains. “The way I see it men, you got two choices. One, you follow this lady’s orders here, and help these people get to where they’re going. It’s gonna be hell, but so’s staying here. And if she’s right, you might look like a hero for it in someone’s eyes later. Or two, you can stay here and fucking rot.”

He turned back to Jaina and gave her a nod this time. “But I think I’ll take my chances across the sea. If we’re gonna die, then we’d best do it trying, eh Lady Proudmoore?”

Yes. That was it. She couldn’t stop now. She couldn’t give up. She couldn’t ask any differently of herself than Sylvanas had done, than what Antonidas was planning to do. No, she had to try. She had to fight. She had to believe.

“Indeed,” the word came out hard and solid from her throat, as if it were said by someone older and wiser, someone that could actually be trusted with a decision of such gravity. “Will you sail for us then, Captain…?”

“Captain Theramore, my lady ” he said, reaching out to shake her hand, instead of saluting her.

A gesture from a land that she had tried forget, from a land that she was sure had forgotten her. A gesture of equals, talking to equals, for Kul Tiras had always been and would always be a willing coalition of captains, factions, and families. They worked together for a greater good, so they didn’t salute, or bow, or curtsy. No. They shook hands.

Jaina grabbed hold of his hand as quickly as she could, and shook at as firmly as she was able to. “A good Kul Tiran name, Theramore,” she said, trying to summon up a smile through the grief and exhaustion.

“Not so good as Proudmoore, but it’ll have to do,” Captain Theramore told her with a wink.

The other captains watched the exchange. By the time the rain finally began to fall, Jaina had shaken all of their hands.

\---

Jaina was thankful there was little in the way of moonlight that filtered through the clouds that night. The grand aft cabin that Captain Theramore had insisted she take was a proper Kul Tiran cabin, fit with all the luxuries of a home away from home, of a people who knew they would spend more time at sea than on land. One such luxury was an expansive bank of windows that overlooked the sea behind the boat. 

And Jaina did not want to have to watch Lordaeron disappear in the distance through them, so the darkness of the night was a blessing.

So instead she snooped through the cabin by way of the soft glow of her magelight. She let her fingers ghost over the dark wooden paneling, over embossed anchors and shelves of leather-bound ledgers and logbooks. Not so unlike her father's cabin. Maybe a little less grand, maybe a little better organized, and certainly lacking the proper hiding places for a little girl to use to become a stowaway for the day. She had always wondered if he'd left such gaps for her on purpose. 

Her hand traveled to another anchor, this one carved on the footboard of the bed. She traced the familiar shape of her homeland’s sigil, the curves and arcs of her family's own crest.

She could still go there. She could ask her father that question. She could fall into the strength of his arms and tell him everything that had happened. She could share those burdens.

But no. She couldn't. Where had those arms been when she needed them? They had been crossed over his chest, just watching as her mother pulled her away, taking her to a destiny they had planned for her. Both of them. A destiny that had led to this--to war and death and fates unimaginably worse than both. 

Besides, in thinking like the adult that she was now, like the practical leader, a logical mage, valued for her intellect, she knew that going to Kul Tiras was not an option. No, the tiny island nation wouldn't have the ability to deal with this many refugees. Besides, she had made a promise. She had committed to this. She had to believe.

Jaina dismissed her light. She felt her way along the edge of the bed in the dark. She let herself fall into its crisp linens, into a mattress far nicer than any she had slept on for some time. Far softer than her spartan bed in Dalaran. Much thicker than the one in the cottage she and Sylvanas had shared in secret. Maybe even better quality than the one in her room back in Lordaeron keep, which she and Arthas used to get in trouble for jumping on all the time.

The thing about a ship at sea is that it's never quite still. It's never really quiet. There is always movement and sound. There, in the dark, Jaina could feel the sea rocking them. She could hear the rain on the windows, soft and gentle now. She could hear the waves the ship parted below. She could hear the soft scuffles of boots above as the crew continued to work through the night, pushing them further and further out to sea. She could hear the wind as it creaked at the masts and strummed the ropes of the rigging like oversized harp strings.

She tried to let it lure her into sleep, like a lullaby long-forgotten, where you could never forget the tune, but couldn't remember the words. Because you never really knew the words. 

But the thing about a ship at sea is that it's never really quiet. There are always plenty of sounds to cover up whatever you want people not to hear. She was used to it being her laughter--the inevitable giggles of a little girl that thought she was much sneakier than she actually was. She was used to it being the drones of her parents arguing. The times when she could make out what they were arguing about, it always seemed to he about her.

But Jaina knew as well as anyone that the sounds of the sea--of the wind and the waves and the canvas and wood and rope that surged with them--were plenty loud enough to cover up the sound of crying. Loud enough even to muffle ugly, guttural sobs. Well, maybe not loud enough for that, but it couldn't be helped. 

Because there, alone and in the dark, but not in silence, she let the floodgates open. She cried. She cried for so many things. She cried at the familiar smells of tar and brine, and how they were only familiar, and not comforting. She cried for the apprehension of the refugees she helped aboard the merchant ships, for the way they looked back at the land that had been all they had ever known, the land that was dying around them. She cried for the criminally low amount of food and water they had managed to gather together, for how meager the rations would have to be until they reached the distant shores of Kalimdor. She cried for all the things she still couldn't wrap her head around, all of the wounds that time might heal, but for now were still too red and raw to touch.

And Sylvanas. She cried mostly for Sylvanas, because in the dark, hidden and alone, she didn't have to lie to herself about that anymore. Gods she missed her. She needed her. She had tried. She had tried to warn her. 

And she loved her. It hurt. It was the worst thing Jaina had ever felt, but she wouldn't deny that pain. No. She had loved her. She still did.

But you can't love a ghost. A ghost can’t warm your strange bed. They can't hold you together even as you break apart inside. They can’t whisper to you that things will get better, that this grief won't last forever. They can't tell you that you will move on, that you will forget them, that you will lose the memory of them to new joys, new loves, new adventures.

Because ghosts don't do any of that. They haunt. They linger. They don't comfort, but they can't leave. They can only wait, and watch as you begin to forget.

\---  
One Year Later  
\---

“Dark Lady.”

She almost didn’t turn to follow that title. They had just begun calling her that, not even a few weeks ago. Some said it with reverence. Others grated on the words, teeth on teeth, bone on bone. She wondered if they feared her to be just another master, just another voice urging them on--to mold their unnaturally continued existence to it’s will, even as it drove them to keep going.

She wondered the same thing about herself.

Sylvanas nodded to the banshee that came to her, urging her to deliver what news she had brought. It was hard to tell them apart. Their gastly features were all drawn the same, lengthened into the semblance of a scream. Maybe this was Anya? Maybe Clea? 

Too hard to tell, and not worth it to dwell on.

“Speak, sister,” Sylvanas commanded, banishing the thought.

“We have done as you asked. What remains of Balnazzar’s forces have been brought up to the courtyard. There are not many. They await your inspection,” the banshee reported.

Sylvanas nodded again. The banshee turned, and she followed her. She watched as the ruined streets of Lordaeron’s capital flickered through her ghostly shape. The memory of her own bodiless state was still fresh, too fresh. She was just another thrall then, another mindless dead thing, serving the will of a being she could not see, only hear. It was not so long ago. No. It had been too soon.

But with a body, and with free will, came other concerns, ones she had thought no longer mattered to her existence. Sylvanas felt a shudder of disgust run through her. That was relatively new. Her body responded with the ghost of a shiver at the memory of that horrible time, of the pain and anger that had been the only feelings that form allowed her. But now, now there was more. Day by day, hour by hour even, she was still learning how much she had left of herself. Somedays, it was too much. Others, it was not enough. Never was it pleasant. 

No, she couldn’t feel how cold the rain that fell on them was. It wasn’t a relief, only a nuisance. She couldn’t smell the smoke of the fires that still burned. She couldn’t feel entirely satisfied of this victory they had won. She could feel free, sure, but she could also feel apprehensive. 

War was one thing. She’d known it all her life, and now beyond it. She could run a camp. She could manage an army. But did such things translate well into running a kingdom, into being looked at as the savior of a new race of people? 

No, that was another thing she didn’t need to dwell on. 

The banshee brought her up to a cluster of ghouls. They rested in various positions, some more human than others. Some kept hunched over on all fours, not knowing what else to do. Others had reverted back to their living instincts. They sat or stood, looking bewildered. Newly freed of any influence, whether it be the Lich King’s or a dreadlord’s, still struggling with their own free will. Still coming to terms with what they were now, what they would continue being.

Many of them looked pretty fresh. Still new. Perhaps just raised to bolster Balnazzar’s army. Too bad, really. For them, at least. 

But good for her. Good for her army, her kingdom. 

Sylvanas found a man, clad still in the armor of a Lordaeron guard. He sat on what remained of a wall and stared into the distance. He had a bit of rot on him. Not too new. Dead long enough to have known the Lich King’s influence, to have known that steady beat upon his mind, like a throbbing heart that he himself no longer possessed--like a battering ram, crashing through a gate he had been so certain he could hold. 

Oh how she knew. How she knew that look on his gaunt face, the haunted yellow glow of his eyes. She knew.

“You there, soldier,” Sylvanas said to him.

The ghoul turned to her, but didn’t look at her. He looked through her. 

“What was your rank, when you lived?” she asked him.

His jaw worked, as if remembering that was how to form words, but no sounds followed. 

“Were you an officer? Do you know how to manage troops?” Sylvanas continued.

His armor said as much. She didn’t have intimate knowledge of the military of Lordaeron, but she could at least recognize a Lieutenant's’ stripes. Well, either that or he stole the armor. Or someone had put the body in it. Again, hard to tell, and hardly worth the thought.

“A quartermaster, then? Can you handle supplies and requisitions?” she asked.

His vision seemed to finally settle on her. He watched her as if she were descending from the stars themselves. She’d seen this before too. She’d heard some romantically call this a second birth. Well, a third maybe, but a birth that could be remembered. A strange moment where everything was yet again new, but also old. Where there was peace, but also a lingering sense of exactly what was wrong. Truly sublime, really, though that was too good a word for it.

Sylvanas bent down, taking a knee beside the corpse of a man who sat on the crumbling remains of the low wall, before the soldier that had once fought for this land, only to die here, and live again in a way he would never have asked for. And now she was asking him to fight for it again.

Sylvanas reached up, guiding those eyes that were wandering again to look at her. She guided him as gently as she could still manage, one gauntleted hand on his cheek. 

“What is your name?” she asked this time.

His jaw worked again, rasping out a single sound, “I…”

“Your name, soldier,” she asked again, insistent. Maybe too insistent. Once, when her voice wasn’t projected so oddly in dual tones, it was much easier to make it sound gentle and soft. So much easier.

“It was…” he tried again before trailing off. The words sounded garbled and strained, but they were words. 

“No,” she corrected him. “It is. It still is.”

 

“I...right. You’re right. Warren. My name is Warren,” he told her. 

Sylvanas drew her hand away. She stood and gave the man a swift nod. “Lieutenant Warren. Get these people here organized. Any soldiers such as yourself now report to you. The civilians you can send with the banshee here. She will find a place for them.”

His eyes stayed on her for a moment, then looked back to the ghouls. Though half of them were still feral, picking through the ruins like animals, and the other half were as wide-eyed and stunned as he was, the soldier didn’t waver long. He stood with her and offered a salute--a fist to the chest, as was customary for his kind. 

Or, well, what he had been before.

“At once, Dark Lady,” he replied.

Great, now even the brand new ones were doing it.

Sylvanas turned to the banshee again. She studied her for a moment. There was always some details of their living form that could be picked out, if one really looked for them. Sylvanas found what she was looking for soon enough. There was a notch in her right ear, just along the bottom of it, right in the middle. She knew where it had come from. A troll arrow that had just missed its mark. 

“Loralen,” she addressed the banshee by name, remembering her and the wound that had once been called a sign of luck. “Have the preparations been finished at the demon gate?”

“Yes, Dark Lady,” Loralen replied, giving very little sign that she cared much to be recognized. Without a body, it was hard. Sylvanas knew this too. It was hard to remember how to feel.

“Good,” Sylvanas said, turning in the direction of said demon gate. “I would hate to welcome any more unwanted visitors to our city. See to this lot while we destroy that thing. Report to me immediately if there are any problems.”

“Yes, Dark Lady,” Loralen replied again.

Sylvanas felt the beginnings of a joke come to mind about echoes. Weren’t there enough of them already with the haunting overtones of their own voices? She needed to get Loralen a body. This was becoming too much. 

Ah, something else new, but old. Her sense of humor. She’d been fighting that back down for the last week. 

She swallowed it back again as she stalked off toward the gate. It lay in the main courtyard of the palace, but it wouldn’t for much longer. As Sylvanas approached, she could see that a crowd of her newly named Forsaken were still busy stacking whatever flammable objects they could find against the unholy construction. Its base was piled high with everything from old furniture and scrap wood to ammunition barrels and blight-yellowed branches of Lordaeron’s ever-present pines. They had already smashed the thing, but she had wanted to be certain that no more demons would enter through it, or could. There would be no more masters for the Forsaken, save those they’d chosen to follow.

And for some reason, it was just her. Only her. Always her.

Even as she came into view, the wretches that had been eagerly piling wood against the demon gate stopped. They turned. Some of them bowed. Some of them just stared. They parted, drawing away from her, clearing a path through their ranks. None of them questioned her. They just waited.

“That’s enough,” she told them. The unnatural effect of her voice made it quite easy to be heard. A shout of minimal effort echoed throughout the entire courtyard, and the clatter of dropped lumber followed it. 

“Let’s show these demons that this land belongs to us now. For the Forsaken!” she cried.

A scattering a cheers followed--maybe a quarter of the crowd. The rest stared back at her, unsure. They were still new. Still remembering. 

She would help them. She would show them what was still left for them.

Sylvanas drew an arrow from her quiver. She felt along the fletching with her thumb to be certain it was the right kind. Yes, eagle’s feather and sinew instead of thread. That meant an arrow wrapped in pitch-soaked rags, one that could carry a flame. She could still feel the difference there. She drew it seamlessly into her bow and held it against the string one handed. With the other hand, she reached into a belt pouch, as she had so many times before. With one swift motion, she brought out her tinderbox and slid open its door to spark a flame from the flint and steel within it. 

She lit the arrow, and made sure the flame kept hold before she drew it back. She aimed and fired, sending the arrow in an elegant arc toward the pile of debris--toward the center of it, where a pitch-soaked pile of hay was waiting.

She watched it fly. She watched as the others did the same. Her people. Were they, even? A year ago, her people were the elves of Quel’thalas. Her people died. Her people fought a war they were so certain they’d win that the didn’t even prepare for it. And they lost. They all lost.

But these were mostly human-shaped. That wasn’t even a fair term to call them, though. What was dead was not anything like what still lived. That much, Sylvanas knew. She wasn’t an elf. They weren’t human. They were all something else. Something new. Something horrible, but now their own. Yes, Forsaken was as good as word as any. 

The arrow landed. The flame spread, and the blaze began. Unnatural eyes where eyes had once been, glowing yellow and red, all trained upon the flames. Not unlike children, they were drawn to the fire, drawn to the simple beauty of it, to the mystery of its destructive power.

Sylvanas watched them. She watched the fire blend with the angry hues of their gazes. It seemed to quiet them. Maybe it brought them a sense of purpose. She could only hope so.

She felt her hand wrapped still around sharp edges. Something squared bit into her palm. That much, she could still feel. Sylvanas looked down at her hand, the one that wasn’t still holding her bow. She watched as those fingers unwrapped and unfolded from the offending object.

Oh right, her tinderbox. The one with the ships and the waves. With the anchors and the gulls. The one she was surprised to find still on her body--still in the same pouch on her belt--after she’d taken up residence in it again. After she’d stolen it back from Arthas. 

It was one of the few things she had left from before. All the other things she carried were gone. Her cloak was gone. She’d had to cut holes in a human one to fit her ears. Her armor was in ruins, so she’d scavenged a mostly new set from the bodies of other rangers. Her sword was nowhere to be found, so she wore one she’d found buried in the chest of an abomination now. Even her bow wasn’t hers. It wasn’t even elven. One of the first ghouls to waken with her had found it for her. It was enchanted, and serviceable--good enough, for something human-made.

She didn’t even have Alleria’s sapphire. That was gone. Sylvanas reached up to her neck, checking for it again. 

Wait no. There had been two chains. Two silver chains. She could remember the weight of them against her chest. And she could feel the absence of them now. Another thing she could feel. 

She opened her hand again, the tinderbox still in it. This wasn’t elven either. She was sure it was from before, though. So sure.

It had only been a year. It feel like an eternity. Each day felt as if she was still waking from a nightmare. Only she never really woke up. The nightmare just continued. She just became more and more aware of it every day.

No. No, it was not elven. It had been a gift. A gift that she cherished enough to keep with her always. 

A gift that carried with it memories of laughter. Of golden hair and easy smiles and fond looks from deep blue eyes that had no glow to them, but still lit up a room. 

It wasn’t that she had forgotten Jaina. No, it was that she had forgotten how she felt about her. Even now, she couldn’t feel it. She couldn’t remember the feeling. But she could remember the tinderbox. She could remember how she kept it. How she held it. How she would smile when she used it, every time.

Sylvanas couldn’t feel love anymore. She couldn’t remember how it had felt. She could only guess. She could only assume that’s why she’d kept this thing. 

The flames roared ever higher, consuming all the fuel that had been thrown to them, then moving on to crack away at the stones of the demon gate. Sylvanas looked between them and tinderbox. She wanted to throw it in with the rest of the leavings of Lordaeron. She didn’t need this. She didn’t need to cling to things from before. 

She had a kingdom to lead, a land to take back, a people to guide and protect. 

She didn’t need it. 

But she kept it all the same. She slid the tinderbox back into the same pouch on her belt that it had always been in. She tied it tight and patted it down to make sure it wasn’t loose. Her hands worked from muscle memory, only doing what they had done countless times before, when blood still ran through them, when they could still feel the cold of the rain and the heat of a fire. When they still remembered how it was to trace the soft curve of Jaina’s lips, and why they did it.

Sylvanas stood and watched the flames with the rest.

Every day brought something new. Maybe, one day, she might understand again why she kept the tinderbox.

\---

“Father...why wouldn’t you listen?” 

It had only been a year. She had done so much. She had fought so hard. She had battled demons, founded a city, and allied with the worst enemies her people had ever known.

And all for what? All for this?

Jaina stood in ankle deep water off the coast of Theramore Isle--a place she had named for another man that had died there, died to make it a home for the people she had brought across the sea to this strange and hostile land. Died a year ago, now. Had it been that long?

And now she could add another tombstone to this island, another name to the list of those whose blood was on her hands. Only this name was her own, and where her own had come from.

She watched as her father's body drifted out into the waves, amidst the wreckage of the Kul Tiran fleet that had taken over her city and fought against the orcs there, against her own allies, and against her own wishes.

Oh and she had tried. She had begged him to stand down, but Daelin Proudmoore did not stand down. He fought orcs. And he was used to winning against them.

It seemed that Jaina had a knack for not being listened to, when those she was trying to convince needed to listen most. How could she forget that? 

She couldn’t, really. It was always on her mind. Even now, as she watched Daelin’s body mingle with the debris of the battle, floating amidst broken boards and tangles of rope and seaweed, Jaina remembered. Arthas. Antonidas. Uther. Sylvanas.

If only they’d listened. 

The thick, harsh tones of Orcish words sounded from behind her, “Above all else, Jaina, he was a proud warrior. Remember him as such.” 

Rexxar stood on the shoreline. It was his axe in her father’s chest. It was him that she’d aided. Not directly, of course. No, she couldn’t have done that. But she did help him. She did bring him here, and she did agree that this was the only way they would preserve the tentative peace they kept in Kalimdor. This being her father’s death.

She could hear Thrall in the distance, addressing the warriors of the Horde that were now standing down, leaving what was left of her army alone, as she had requested. “Durotar is now safe. We have no further quarrel with these humans,” her friend turned to her as he continued, lifting his hammer as he shouted over the water. “We will leave your isle in peace, Jaina. I pray that we never have to come here again. Farewell, sorceress.”

She did not turn to acknowledge him. It felt wrong. All of this was so wrong. There hadn’t been a right choice to make. She’d promised the orcs peace. They’d promised the same. But there had been no treaties, no laws. No, this land was still to raw and new for such things. Jaina had come to appreciate the way the orcs worked, functioning on respect and honor. She only wished that her own people understood the same.

And she only wished that he’d listened to her. That he’d respected her. That he’d cared enough. Tides, that he loved her even. There was so much she could have told him about. So much, from before they landed here even. She hadn’t seen him in almost a decade. Where was the father whose shoulder she could cry on? Who would understand what she’d been through? Who would tell her that she’d done well for herself, that he was proud of her?

No, she didn’t get to have any of that, and now she never would.

As the orcs began to make their way out of the city, Jaina waded out into the wreckage. She couldn’t just leave him out there. He hadn’t listened. He hadn’t even given thought to a world where peace was an option, but that didn’t mean he deserved to rot, floating in the sun.

No, she would give him a proper burial. 

Jaina waded out into the sea. It was warm here, so far south and west. Warmer than she was used to. But the sea was all the same otherwise. The salt soaked her robes and stung at her eyes. If she hadn’t already been crying, it would have let loose the tears. This time, Jaina didn’t really care who saw. She cried. She had good reason to cry. She cried as the water rose higher and higher on her frame. The ocean was lapping at her shoulders by the time she reached him.

Her father’s body was tangled now. A torn piece of sailcloth and wrapped around his legs. That wasn’t really a problem. It was the water-logged barrel that was lashed to his arm by an equally water-logged piece of rope that she couldn’t manage to free him from. She yanked at his greatcoat, holding on to the fine broadcloth of Kul Tiran green, pulling. But it held fast to the rope, and his arm with it.

Strong arms, that had carried her around, that had lifted her up, that had cradled her. 

When was it enough? When would this world stop hurting her? She had fought so hard for it. Jaina thought she deserved a reward, or at least a good long rest. She got neither, only more agonizingly difficult decisions, and only more blood on her hands. 

Only this.

She reached for the knife she still kept on her belt to cut him free. Only it wasn’t there. Jaina looked down at her waist, but she couldn’t see it in murk of the waves.

No. Please no. That was the only thing she had left. 

Jaina patted at her hips frantically, but it wasn’t there. She dove into the water before she could even think about it. She couldn’t see. There were vague shapes above her--more bodies, the scatter remains of ships, the plants and normal detritus of a warm and shallow sea. But below was just sand and murk, stirred by her own feet and the waves themselves. 

She panicked. She came up from air, then went back down again.

Not that knife. Please no. Anything else. She’d lost so much. Please. Please.

Jaina felt along the bottom. Her hands clawed through sand and kelp, through rocks and shells that stabbed at them like tiny blades themselves, but she didn’t find the knife. She swam away from Daelin’s body, retracing her steps back to the shallows, frantic. But when she turned again, looking about as the water began to clear, she saw that his body was floating further away, further out to sea.

Jaina pulled at the string around her heart, at a bond that she had forged in better times, and had hoped to use in better ways. No amount of distance could break it. Even as her heart broke time and time again, it had not. Sponge came to heed her call as readily as he ever did, curling up into existence from the ocean’s waters, though his own were fresh and clearer. 

“Please go get him,” Jaina almost whispered to the elemental. “Bring him to shore for me.”

Sponge knew. He knew what she meant. She didn’t have to specify any more than that. He gave her one of his little nods and sped off, skimming the surface of the waves, becoming part of the water, but also apart from it.

But she still couldn’t find the knife. Even when she was ankle-deep again, her robes stuck to her with salt and sea, clinging to her despite the wind. It wasn’t anywhere. No sharp glint of gold or steel caught her eye in the shallows, or in the waves that tumbled onto the beach. No fine elven filigree, or even the carvings in the antler handle, which were already fading away and wearing down with use.

No sign of the only thing she had left that Sylvanas had given her. The only proof she had that those days, that short collection of months they had been together, were not just another dream. That they had been real. That there were good things like that in the world. Maybe not for her, but for others. Things like that were worth saving. They were worth the heartache. They were maybe even worth giving up her father to die because he would not listen to her. Maybe. 

A lone figure stood on the beach still. Rexxar was walking toward her. Lumbering, with his great, heavy strides. As his boots hit the waves, they parted for him, as if afraid of his bulk. Jaina knew better than to be afraid.

She stopped, staring him down with hard eyes as she came to her. 

They only softened when she saw what he held. The knife looked so small in his massive palm as he held it out to her. He looked at her, pensive. Even under the wolf hide that hid most of his face, she could see the struggle in his eyes--an apology he could not give, but wanted to all the same. 

“You dropped this,” was all he said instead.

Jaina snatched the knife from him. She loved him and hated him in that moment. She wanted to hug him, but also wanted to stab him in the heart with the very thing he’d retrieved for her. 

Fuck. Just...fuck. 

Even as she could feel the anger heat her cheeks, the tears still fell from her eyes. They didn’t stop falling. She wondered if they ever would.

“Get out of my sight,” Jaina choked out, trying to make a sob into a threat and only barely succeeding. 

She held onto the knife until the elven gold bit into her sea-soaked palms, until the carvings left dents in her skin, distinct impressions of branches and leaves. Even then, she didn’t want to let it go again. She needed it. She needed Sylvanas still. She needed the reminder that there was love out there in the world, even if only ever happened in brief, fleeting flickers. Even if it always had to come to a heart-wrenching end.

\---  
Many Years Later  
\---

The wings of a plaguebat always made a distinctive sound. They cut through the air with a heavy lack of grace, as if their efforts were only just enough to keep the creature and its cargo aloft. But like everything undead, that clunkiness belied an underlying efficiency. It did move just enough, it drew just enough necromantic energy to power only what muscles were needed, what bone and tendons had to bend and flex. Because undead things did not need to be graceful or beautiful. They just needed to keep going.

And so she had.

Sylvanas flew over the snow-capped peaks of Alterac, accompanied by a dozen of her dark rangers. They were due for a meeting with the Alliance in Arathi in a few hours. A meeting she did not want to have. A test of loyalty she did not want to administer, yet she had no choice. She rarely ever did. Such was the burden of leadership, now multiplied tenfold more than she had ever wanted for herself. 

They flew close to the peaks, again, only as high as was needed, only just far enough above the rocks and snow below. Too close maybe, because she could see it now. She could see the copse of pines, clustered around a ruined village, hidden in a little valley. A valley that would fill with wildflowers in the summer, briefly and beautifully. A valley she knew every inch of, even if she hadn’t been there for years.

And they were close enough that she could see the roof through the trees. Still intact. Huh. 

Curiosity got the better of her. 

“Fly on, sisters. I will rejoin you shortly,” she shouted to her rangers, before gripping at the reins of her plaguebat to turn him down into the valley.

Oh she’d been this close before, but she’d never come down, never gone into the trees. This land technically belonged to her now, after all. It had for over a decade. She had every right to be here, every right to satisfy this itch. 

Then why did it feel like she didn’t belong here? Why did it feel like the familiar snow-weighted branches of the pines were pointing her away from this place, and not welcoming her to it. 

No. She had a right to know. She was allowed to see. 

Sylvanas left the bat outside of the grove, marveling at how fast he went still--completely inert, as if he were made of stone. A gargoyle, a stone guardian. She didn’t have to worry about him flying away or getting distracted.

What a wonderful creation these things were.

Sylvanas headed for the cabin. The years hadn’t left this place entirely unchanged. There were more trees than she remembered. Even now, spikey little pines just barely poked through the thick coating of snow that she trudged through. Life moved on, as life did. As she did not. 

The flower boxes she had built on the windows were rotten. One had fallen off completely, its remains must have been buried completely by the snow. The door she’d made was still intact, but the boards weathered to a silver sheen and splintering. But the rest of the place looked as it had the day she’d found it. The day she’d brought Jaina there, and kept them out of the storm.

Sylvanas found herself hesitating at the door. 

“Are you still here?” she asked of nothing, her hand hovering on the handle.

There was no response. Of course there wasn’t. He’d never liked her.

“You were always frightened of me,” she went on as she opened the door. “I never understood why. You have plenty of reason to be now.”

But there was no reply. No drip on her head. Nothing. 

She knew he was here, though. The cottage was practically immaculate for being abandoned for something like fifteen years. The split logs were still stacked by the hearth. Though faded, there was still a patchwork quilt spread over a now sagging bed, slightly askew. There were still bowls stacked on the mantle, next to earthen jars that had once held grain and herbs, and a few sticks intermixed with them--maybe the remains of a wreath she’d woven once, out of willow branches. 

It was so long ago, but not really that long ago. But she remembered. She remembered those days, running away from her responsibilities. What for, though? What had it given her in return?

That much, she never quite got back, even after all this time.

But though the years showed their passing in the state of the objects within, preserving the structure seemed to have always been his specialty. And that was sound. Even the roof that she’d always made the excuse of needing to repair was good and solid. No holes, no leaks that she could see. The elemental was definitely still here, in some form or another. 

“I love what you’ve done with the place,” she joked into the silence of the darkened room. 

Sponge spun up from the floor, surging into his full form like a rogue wave rising from the sea. Sudden and violent. A surge of water and wrath that began to split itself apart, then fling towards her. 

But Sylvanas was fast. She was smart. She was prepared. She was everything that the last decade and a half of war and undeath had made her. 

She dodged the waterbolt with a smile. “See? You don’t even recognize me, do you Sponge?”

He was in the process of tossing another one at her, but stopped. How many people knew that name? Sylvanas wondered. Not many. Did Jaina even call him that anymore? Did she still use him?

She had no idea. That was part of the fun, the curiosity of it all. She hadn’t even thought of this place in so long. To find it now, and with him still here, it was a treat. A treat for the mind, for that notion that still had a cold sense of caring about the past. Not out of love or worry, but purely from wonder. 

“Or do you?” she asked him as the elemental settled into a pose that still translated into ready to fight, but listening. “Or do you just remember your name?”

He didn’t move. He hadn’t changed much. His water was still shining and clear, just barely filled in with hints of aqua tones. He had a slight hoar of frost on him, spiking along his back and the ridges of his head. That was new, or maybe it was just that cold. Sylvanas couldn’t tell.

“I always wondered why you kept this place. And you’re still doing it, after all this time. No one’s coming back. Not your first masters, and not Jaina. I hear she’s finally taken my advice and gone home to Kul Tiras, or that’s what the rumor is these days. No one’s heard from her for quite a while,” Sylvanas reported. 

She leaned against the doorframe, as she’d done so many times before. She smirked, as she would before, but not at all like that. Not at all. “Or do you know? Do you know more than us, I wonder? Do you know better? You probably do. No, I’m certain you do.”

 

Sponge studied her, in as much as she could gather that he did. It was hard to read something that didn’t really have a face. 

And then he stepped aside, well, glideded aside really, as if to ask her to come in.

She did not. She kept leaning in the doorway. No. She would not come in. She could satisfy her curiosity, sure, but she would not come in. As for why? Well, it didn’t feel right. Sylvanas couldn’t feel much, but she could feel that. She could feel that there was a line to be crossed. Coming in would be stepping right over it. No. She would not do that.

“What a sudden change of heart,” she noted. “As temperamental as your mistress still, I see. It suits you both. Keep changing, Sponge. It’s the only way for the living to survive. Tell her the same. Not that you can, of course, but she knows. She knows.”

Sylvanas pushed herself off the doorframe and grabbed for the handle of the weathered door again to shut it behind her as she left. 

Sponge panicked. He surged closer to her, but still didn’t come too near. No, he’d always been wary of her. He waved what functioned as arms, then beckoned her, then pointed to the old three-legged table that still stood in the center of the cabin’s single room. 

“No,” Sylvanas told him simply. “I’m not coming in. I just wanted to see if this place was still here.”

He kept gesturing frantically at the table. 

Sylvanas found a bubble of frustration bursting in her. No. This wasn’t what she had wanted. She didn’t know what she wanted out of this visit, or even why she came. She found the door handle and grasped it tightly. “No, Sponge. I don’t have time for this.”

She didn’t really. She was bordering on being late for the meeting. Well, being fashionably late never hurt anyone.

But why did this make her so angry. No. It would have been better if she’d kept fighting him. Maybe that’s what she wanted. A fight. A rejection. Proof that she was no longer the woman that would wait here for hours for her lover--who would weave together the wildflowers of the valley and sing. Who would whisper sweet words and follow them with sweeter kisses. Who would neglect responsibility, yes, but in the name of love. Who was happy--always happy here.

Sylvanas slammed the door behind her as she turned back to the pines and the snow. She never saw the letter on the table. Never saw the yellowed paper and the fading ink that still dotted its pages. 

She flew away without seeing that yes, she had been loved. So loved. And they had been happy. So happy. So alive.

\---

Jaina was exhausted. She’d never been so tired in her life. Well, maybe as tired. There were plenty of times that had gotten close to this. Plenty of other struggles that had brought her to this point, sure.

But she hadn’t ended any of those walking through hallways that were a distant memory come to life again. Over worn stones that, despite the passing of the years, were no different than when she’d left them behind. Not different from when the feet of a child graced them. 

But there she was, walking shoulder to shoulder with her mother through the dark halls of Proudmoore Keep. Only now she was taller than her. Just a little. Just enough. 

And now she was the Lord Admiral. 

“You’re certain you want to stay here?” Katherine asked her again.

“I told you,” Jaina replied. “I don’t want you to move your things. My old room is just fine. We’ll figure everything out. I just...I just need to rest.”

Katherine let out an understanding sigh. “I know. And...I’m sorry.”

“Don’t start on this again,” Jaina groaned. 

So she didn’t. Conversations between the two of them were going to be difficult. That was for certain. Even with all of the forgiveness and trust they’d traded in these last awful days, through Jaina’s banishment to Thros and Ashvane’s siege of the city, there were some wounds that only time would heal. Jaina knew that well now. She’d lived long enough, and hard enough, to accept that truth. 

So until then, their conversations would be awkward. There were worse things. There were so many worse things.

“I haven’t changed anything,” Katherine said after a lingering silence.

Jaina was too tired to process such a vague statement. “What?”

“Your room. I kept it as you left it,” Katherine told her. She wouldn’t look at her own, instead staring at the door that they approached.

Oh. A vindictive part of Jaina wanted to comment about how that wouldn’t absolve Katherine of any guilt. For sending her away in the first place. Or for the welcome she gave her when Jaina finally did return, all these years later. But she didn’t let it out. No. Now was not the time for that. Jaina swallowed it back like bile--bitter and harsh. 

“Full of stuffed unicorns and books then?” she joked instead.

Katherine looked at her then at least. She let out the sparest of laughs, dry and empty--as exhausted and hollow as Jaina felt. “Probably. I haven’t been up here for a while. People used to send things for you, gifts and such. Mostly letters. I put them in there too.”

Jaina summoned up her own dry laugh. “Who?”

“Mages, mostly. Some names I knew, most I didn’t. Friends of yours, I guessed. I didn’t open any of them,” Katherine replied.

And then they were at the door. So distinctly Kul Tiran, for a door, at least--with its rounded top, deep green paint, and the thick, heavy hardwood it was carved from. Robust and utilitarian. Meant to last. Even after all this time, not all that different than when she left it. Even though the entire world had changed around that door, it was still the same. 

Katherine pulled out a ring of keys from her belt and brought up one surprisingly quickly. She stepped to unlock the door. “We’ll need to get a copy of the house keys made for you. Or...I guess I should give you mine?”

“Mother, please...” Jaina warned again. 

“Right, right. Tomorrow. We’ll deal with it tomorrow,” Katherine relented. 

She unlocked the door. It swung open to reveal a darkened room, lit only by the moonlight that came in through the westward facing window. 

It looked like a tomb, like the rooms at Windrunner Spire that Sylvanas had shown her all those years ago. Locked in time. Not allowed to change. Not allowed to die properly, only to linger on. A lie, really. 

Jaina stepped into it, determined to make it a truth. She conjured up a magelight, and did her best not to notice her mother’s suspicious gaze at the casual display of magic. Well, that was something she’d have to get used to pretty fast. 

It revealed that Katherine hadn’t been lying. A little girl’s room was lit by the cold arcane light, complete with drawings tacked up over a desk. A crude rendering of a wizard was front and center, complete with a pointed hat, a long grey beard, and a gnarled staff. Around him were less exotic things--colorful pictures of boats on blue oceans, simple birds against green trees and grey skies. All of them hung over stacks of books--a little library all her own. Some were typical primers and simple histories, but others were decidedly not appropriate for a little girl. Naval tactics. Tidesage lore. Bestiaries of the Eastern Kingdoms. And yes, there was a stuffed unicorn sitting on the bed. Percy was his name. She had not been allowed to bring him to Lordaeron, a fact that had once deeply upset nine year old Jaina, though she had pretended not to care at the time. That seemed to be the adult thing to do.

The only difference from Jaina’s memory was a stack of packages on the dresser. Her mother had been right. They were mostly letters, but a few small boxes were among them too. The stack was larger than she’d thought it would be. Who would be looking for her here, in a place she’d avoided returning to for decades?

“I’ll let you rest,” Katherine offered from where she still hovered by the door. “The linens on the bed are fresh. It shouldn’t be too dusty. I have the staff clean in here once a month.”

“It’s just fine, mother,” Jaina told her, turning to give her a nod that she hoped looked like approval and understanding. She was too tired to be sure. 

“Goodnight then, Jaina. I’ll see you in the morning?”

“Yes, in the morning,” Jaina said with another nod.

She hated to admit it, but Jaina felt a weight lift from her shoulders as her mother finally walked away. She felt a little less exhausted, a little less overwhelmed. Only a little, of course. 

With that finally over with, Jaina found herself asking the same question she had of herself before. Who had been trying to find her? Who wanted to find her even, after all she’d done? After all she didn’t do?

Jaina pushed the magelight aside, floating it over the dresser. She was exhausted, sure, but curious. Percy’s embrace would wait for her a little longer. He’d already been waiting for over twenty years, after all. Another few minutes wouldn’t hurt.

Jaina took the first letter in the pile. She recognized Khadgar’s handwriting immediately. She’d seen enough summons from him in her day to know how he wrote her name. And just as Lady Jaina Proudmoore this time. Not Archmage. 

No, he wouldn’t call her that after she’d left Dalaran. After how she’d left. Even bumbling old Khadgar could hold his grudges. 

She didn’t read that letter. She knew what it was. A plea to come back, to return to Dalaran, to help fight the Legion. She’d received such letters elsewhere. They followed her throughout the world, everywhere she tried to run. They only stopped when she went back to Theramore. Even Khadgar didn’t think she would ever return there.

Strange that he thought she’d come here. Strange, but not completely out of line. 

She sifted through more of them. Every name brought with it a memory. All of them were looking for her. Kinndy Sparkshine. Aegwynn. Pained. Vereesa. Even Kalec had tried to find her here. 

And she’d given them good reason to, of course. She’d made a habit of disappearing at times. She had also made a habit of not giving fair warning. That was probably not a great thing to do, especially for someone who could instantly teleport themselves to just about anywhere they wanted to be. No, she didn’t blame them for looking for her. In fact, it curled a spark of fondness for all of them in her heart. Her friends had cared enough to try to find her. To worry. To love her, despite everything.

The papers colored with age as she reached the bottom of the pile. Some distant relatives were the return addresses there, those that must not have gotten word she’d moved to Lordaeron. A few well-wishes and happy birthdays. One of the boxes held a good brass compass, still in perfect working order. A traditional Kul Tiran gift for a young captain that would be setting out on their own soon. 

And beneath that was a curious letter. This one was upside down. A thick, square envelope, edged in gold. The paper had yellowed to the point where it almost blended with the color of the gold. It was held closed by a very official-looking wax seal. A phoenix. An elven phoenix, impressed in ranger blue. Jaina nearly dropped the letter when she flipped it over, revealing the spidery Thalassian characters that spelled out her name in the ancient language.

There was no return address, but she knew who it was from. They’d started with letters, after all. And they had left one another many notes after that. Even after all this time, even if it was in a language she rarely read or even spoke these days, she knew Sylvanas’ handwriting. She knew it well.

It was so old...it had to be...it had to be from before. Right? 

Jaina broke the wax of the seal without asking herself another question. It snapped and shattered, gone brittle with age. Even with the violence of that, Jaina carefully drew forth a single page with a trembling hand. Protected as it had been by the envelope, the ink hadn’t faded too much. She could still read it. She could still read the elegant Thalassian letters. Whatever Sylvanas had to say wasn’t fit for blocky Common ones. No, only her native language would do.

Jaina held the letter up. She started to read it. Could she, though? Thros had seen to it that her memory of Sylvanas was very fresh still. She’d seen her there, plenty of times. For every time she’d begged her father and Arthas, she’d begged Sylvanas at least twice. She’d begged her not to go, not to leave her. She’d begged her to come to Kalimdor. And every time, just as she had done then, Sylvanas didn’t listen. 

None of them ever listened. 

So yes. She could read it. She could summon the courage that she’d learned from Sylvanas, the confidence and swagger of hers that she still tried to emulate. The Sylvanas she remembered, not the thing that still haunted the world in her form. Not something that smiled with her smile, but without the joy behind it. Oh, they’d met a few times now. Jaina had seen the Sylvanas that remained, the Sylvanas that didn’t even look at her. The Sylvanas whose eyes ghastly red eyes would always flick away from her purposefully, in those few times they had been in the same room. No, not her. Not the Horde’s Warchief. Not the enemy. 

No, her Sylvanas. The one that had left her, but only because she thought it was the right thing to do. The one that might have loved her, a long time ago. Jaina wasn’t sure. She’d never been sure. But gods had Jaina loved her. 

No, she had to read it. She had to know.

_Jaina,_

_I pray this letter finds you safe. I pray it finds you well and whole. I pray that you read it, and aren’t so angry with me that you won’t._

_Arthas will arrive at our gates tomorrow. We are as prepared as I can make us, but Anasterian isn’t taking this attack seriously. We’re in for a long, difficult fight, yet as I look around me, all I see is the confidence and pride of a people who think they’ve already won. I pray too, that they’re right. I hope it will be that easy for us, but I don’t know. I suppose I will find out._

_I only want to you to understand one thing. I’m sorry I didn’t make it clear before, and I’m so sorry I didn’t say it when I had the chance. As soon as I can, I will tell you face to face. I will take you into my arms and tell you how much I love you. I will tell you how much I miss you already. I will tell you how I can’t bear to be without you._

_So forgive me, Jaina Proudmoore. Please forgive me, because I love you. I love you, and I can’t wait until this is all over, until I can to see you again._

_Forever yours,_

_Sylvanas Windrunner_

Jaina was certain that she was past tears. She was too tired to cry. She had cried so much, and for so many things. She had lost so much. She had suffered. She had loved again, and hated more. All these years...all these years…

But yes, there were still tears left. Somehow, somewhere, there were still tears left for Sylvanas. For her Sylvanas, who she’d loved.

For her Sylvanas, who had loved her.

**Author's Note:**

> What a long strange trip it has been. Thank you for coming on this journey with me, even to the bitter end!


End file.
